


In Truth

by ackermom



Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Canon Compliant, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-19
Packaged: 2018-03-08 05:12:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3196598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ackermom/pseuds/ackermom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She does not look at him. When he spills, she will not waste time defending herself; she will run, as she has before, and the vicious cycle will renew itself in their desperate footsteps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Truth

**Author's Note:**

> i've been wondering if kratos knew the truth about genis and raine. originally posted on my [tumblr](http://filiuscanis.tumblr.com/post/107392756470/458-words-wondering-if-kratos-knew-about-genis)

The mana stiffens the moment he walks into the room, and Raine surreptitiously settles her eyes elsewhere. She can feel his gaze quiver on her for a moment, flicker over the other villagers sitting at the table; in that moment, she knows that he knows, and her carefully-drafted escape plan sparks up in her mind. 

"Kratos," Phaidra says instantly. "Thank you for meeting with us tonight. Please, sit down."

He obliges her and takes the empty seat next to Raine. The mana in the room weigh heavy and strange; she does not look at him. When he spills, she will not waste time defending herself; she will run, as she has before, and the vicious cycle will renew itself in their desperate footsteps. 

"You are Professor Sage, I presume," the mercenary says. 

Raine meets his cold gaze. “I’ll be accompanying you and Colette on the journey. That’s alright, I suppose.”

His stare lasts for no more than the thinnest spin of a second. 

"Elven magic will be useful in our fight against the Desians," he says, and the moment is over, and the panic that had worked its way into her heart now settles as suspicion in her brain.

"You knew," she says, later, much later. 

Kratos barely glances up from the grave- is it wrong to interrupt him, this ritual he respects each time they return to Dirk’s house- but his dark eyes flicker back to hers, if only for an instant. There are so many things she could be saying, so she clarifies. 

"You knew, from the beginning," Raine says, "about Genis and I."

"That you are half-elves?"

Raine purses her lips. “You never said anything.”

He holds crushed flowers in his hands; they would have been lovely, she thinks, had they not been so unfortunately destroyed. “Did you think I would?”

Of course; she thought, any day, someone will find out, someone will know, and then it is all over, this small life we have built here for ourselves; she thought Frank would, she thought the mayor would, she thought Lloyd or Colette would, she thought that she herself would so irrationally destroy their lives with a simple confession. She wondered, often, if Iselia would be better without them. 

"I did not expect you to keep your silence," Raine says. 

Kratos sets the flowers on the top of the grave. “It was not my place.”

She knows he is trying to tell her,  _I did not care_ , but his voice rings with the familiar monotone of his lies, and Raine’s staff slips in her grasp. 

"Thank you," she says. "Had you exposed us, I don’t expect we’d be speaking together now. The truth would have ruined us."

"The truth," Kratos says, "tends to do that."


End file.
